About this product

About

Asprey International Limited, formerly Asprey & Garrard Limited, is a United Kingdom-based designer, manufacturer and retailer of jewellery, silverware, home goods, leather goods, timepieces and a retailer of books.

Asprey’s flagship retail store is located on Bruton Street, Mayfair in London, United Kingdom. Asprey has supplied crowns, coronets and sceptres for royal families around the world and, as of 2013, holds a Royal Warrant from the Prince of Wales.

From 1996 to 1998, Asprey held a partnership with Ferrari’s Formula 1 team.

Foundation

Asprey was established in England in Mitcham, Surrey, in 1781. Founded as a silk printing business by William Asprey, it soon became a luxury emporium. In 1841, William Asprey’s elder son Charles went into partnership with a stationer located on London’s Bond Street. In 1847, the family broke with this partner and moved into 167 New Bond Street Celebrating 240 years, Asprey moves to Mayfair’s Bruton Street, the original location of its first workshops and the birthplace of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

From its central London location, Asprey advertised ‘articles of exclusive design and high quality, whether for personal adornment or personal accompaniment and to endow with richness and beauty the table and homes of people of refinement and discernment.’ An early speciality was dressing cases. Asprey crafted traditional cases and designs, mostly in leather, suitable for the new style of travel ushered in by railways. The main competitors at the time were H.J. Cave & Sons. Asprey was recognized for its expertise when it won honorable mention for its dressing cases at the International Exhibition of 1862, but it ultimately lost out to its rivals, H.J. Cave & Sons, in both 1862 & 1867.

The company consolidated its position through acquisitions. In 1859, Asprey absorbed Edwards, a maker of dressing cases and holder of a Royal Warrant. Soon after the merger, Asprey would lose this warrant. The company also purchased the Alfred Club at 22 Albemarle Street, which backed on to the New Bond Street store and meant that Asprey now had entrances on two of London’s most fashionable streets.^[1]

20th century

As the business grew, the company acquired manufacturing facilities and hired silversmiths, goldsmiths, jewellers and watchmakers including Ernest Betjeman, the father of the distinguished poet John Betjeman, one of the most highly regarded craftsman and designers of his day. In the 1920s, commissions poured in from around the world, from American millionaire J. Pierpont Morgan to potentates such as the Maharaja of Patiala, who commissioned a huge teak travelling trunk for each of his wives, in which each trunk was fitted with solid silver washing and bathing utensils with waterspouts of ornate tiger head and lined with blue velvet. Asprey cigarette cases became collectable amongst young sophisticates who delighted in its other modern products, including travel clocks, safety razors and automatic pencil sharpeners.^[2]